


Broken Chains Bring Blackened Thoughts

by hufflepuffsquee



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Trespasser
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-30
Updated: 2016-03-30
Packaged: 2018-05-30 01:43:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6403561
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hufflepuffsquee/pseuds/hufflepuffsquee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“It rips off the chain and it’s hard not to scream, maybe a scream comes out. It’s loud, magic making hair prickle. Staring at it, flashes of magic burn my eyes, run, run, I can’t let it be me.”</p>
<p>After the events at the Exalted Council, Kerah is preoccupied with her own thoughts about the Saarebas. Specifically, about how she was nearly one of them. Not wanting to scare her wife, she's bottled up. Luckily, a certain spirit brings the issue to Sera's attention.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Broken Chains Bring Blackened Thoughts

**Author's Note:**

> For more information about Kerah, visit http://puffbadgersandbees.tumblr.com/OtherInquisitors

It’s outside her room again. She knows it. Sitting on the railing, feet dangling over the pub, swinging them like some weird little kid. She thought it went back to the stinking Fade, but it apparently hasn’t gone yet. Stupid stinking demon pretending it’s not one. She hunches over her book and wrinkles her nose, glaring as she makes herself focus on the drawing she’s doing.

“It rips off the chain and it’s hard not to scream, maybe a scream comes out. It’s loud, magic making hair prickle. Staring at it, flashes of magic burn my eyes, run, run, I can’t let it be me.”

Oh, Andraste’s cunt…

“No horns, it doesn’t look right. Sound still comes from the sewn-shut mouth, how?”

“Yeah, alright!” She straightens and walks to the door. “Congrats, creepy, you’re in my head about the Qunari magic freak. Now get out!”

She hates that it digs around for things she’s not even thinking about, not really. She was thinking about Kerah, the feel of her horns under her hands while she shudders, and how the frig you’re supposed to draw that feeling.

It doesn’t stop kicking its feet, heels hitting the wood with soft noises that are starting to drive her up the wall. It doesn’t even look at her when it replies, and she hates that the most.

“Not yours.”

“Ugh!” She wrinkles her nose. “You don’t have to be such a try hard about how fucking weird you are! I know how I thought about it, go away.”

“It’s how she thinks about it, too. The same, but different.”

“What?”

“It could have been me, my horns gone, my mouth closed, I ran from this before I am running again. So much power, do I have that power? I don’t want it, I just want to be me. Do I need a leash, should I have been like that? Maybe, maybe, mayb-”

“Maker’s arsehole, shut it!” She snaps, slamming the book down. She’s tempted to push it off that fucking stupid railing and knowing that it would just do some stupid magic poof thing instead of smacking onto the floor like a normal human would. “It’s not your business!”

“It hurts,” It says, and it leans forward when it does, like thinking about this hurts it, too. “I don’t know how to help, she wants you to help, but it scares you. She doesn’t ever want to scare you… But she needs help. I can’t help.” It shakes its head. “She helped me…”

Sera narrows her eyes at it, nose still wrinkled up. She hasn’t ever really trusted this thing, but Kerah does. So she kind of does, too, technically. Kerah did help it, and Sera still doesn’t get why, but it’s right. It helps Kerah.

“Frig.” She mutters, rising and stalking past him. “Stupid frigging demon, stupid frigging magic, stupid frigging Fade bullshit. Fuck.”

It stays on the railing, feet still kicking, while she throws herself down the stairs, not bothering to put on shoes. It’s so elfy, not wearing shoes, but she doesn’t bother much at Skyhold. Why go to the trouble, right?

She stomps a couple times around the grounds, just to make sure the stomping is out of her system. She doesn’t want to be stomping when she goes to Kerah, that wouldn’t be good. When all the stomps are out, she sighs and starts up the steps to the hall, the slap of her feet against stone echoing a little now that the massive place is empty.

She finds herself in Kerah’s room –their room, really, when it comes to sleeping and stuff anyway- in a matter of moments, spotting the mage in question leaning on the doorframe leading out to her balcony (the one Sera had suggested shoving the bed off of once Coryphybutt had finally bitten the dust).

“Hey, you.” She says, wishing now that she’d thought about this more. Written stuff down. Maybe even talked to the demon thingee before trying this. Whelp. So much for knowing what to do or what to say. Whatever. She’d manage fine, wouldn’t she? Always did.

Kerah startles a little, because she does that. Walk around a corner too fast and you could startle her. Only at home, though, never where scary shite was everywhere all the time. Sera didn’t know how she did that, but she loved that.

“Oh. Sera.” She relaxes and gives her a warm smile, the same sort of smile she’s been giving Sera for nearly three years now, and it still gives her butterflies. “Did you need something?”

Sera must have a face. Apparently she has all kinds of faces she doesn’t even know she makes, and Kerah knows all of them.

“Just… To talk, yeah? Didn’t do much of that back in Val Royfancyshits. And it’s been a couple days, you know. Thought you might need some talking. Big shit. Floating library. Qunari. Solas is actually even more of a shit than I thought he was….”

“And that’s just part of it,” Kerah says, laughing a little as she turns and flops onto the bed, eyes closed, and huffs out a sigh. “It’s… I don’t know.”

“I think… maybe you do.” Sera follows and sits with her legs crossed, putting a hand on Kerah’s knee. She doesn’t like being serious, not really, because that usually means Bad. Scary, crying, it’s not fun. But she needs to so she will. Always. Anything for her Honey Tongue. “Or… At least, you need to talk until you do know, yeah?”

“Probably.” Kerah drags her hand down her face, eyes shut. “That was all just… Fucked up, mostly. I mean, some of it was amazing. We saw some amazing things. But it was wrapped in all this…. fucked up.” She shrugs, letting her hand fall onto her middle.

“Yeah… It bothered you a lot. I’m… What should I do?”

When they’d first started all this, back when the Inquisition was the biggest deal in Thedas and Coryphyshite and his doucheiguana were terrifying everyone, Sera had learned it was okay to ask that. She’d broken down, after Kerah had gotten another letter from someone who knew Stroud, cursing her to the Fade and back, wishing all manners of evil on her. She hadn’t known what to do and Kerah had been so upset…

So then Kerah had told her what she should do. And Sera had done it. That was how things went now, for them both, and it was good. Better than good. It kept them held together. Sera liked things that kept them held together.

“I’m… It’s all…” Kerah sighs again and sat up, struggling with the new balance of it for just a moment. “It’s about the… magic stuff. And that… that Saarebas… I need to talk about some of that, but you’re… magic scares you.” Her brow furrows in a frown so deep it hurts Sera’s chest. “I don’t want to scare you…”

“Honey Tongue…” She murmurs, scooting on the bed so she is very much square in Kerah’s lap. She wraps her arms around her and rests her forehead on Kerah’s chest. “I’m… You don’t scare me. I know you. I even let you do that zappy thing in bed, y’know? I like the zappy thing… You’re all… In control. You don’t scare me.”

Sera feels Kerah’s chest move as she draws in a slow breath, and feels it move again what feels like hours later when Kerah finally lets that breath back out.

“The Saarebas… You know I’m Tal Vashoth. That was… why I left. That’s what I was going to be, what they were going to do to me.” Her voice catches, and she stops for a moment or two. “There’s a lot about that… that my brain keeps hanging itself up on.”

“Like what?” Sera doesn’t move other than to trace her fingers up and down Kerah’s back through the thin shirt she’s wearing.

“Like… Like I saw myself like it was, for a minute. And… a lot since then. I dream about it… About my mouth shut and my horns gone and bound to… To someone else’s whim. I see why Cole was so scared of that, now. Being bound to the wrong person. I… could have been made to hurt people. I don’t even know… if Saarebas have any will. If they know that’s wrong. I could have been like some…. like a dog.”

Her voice is so quiet and she sounds so sick, Sera’s heart hurts. She lifts her head and traces Kerah’s lips with her fingers, watching those blue eyes slowly shut. She moves her fingers down the scar on her chin, then back up, both hands, to her horns. Fingers flutter feather light over the knobbly bases, flesh that looks like it should hurt but that doesn’t. Kerah sighs and leans into it and Sera moves her hands up to the tips, then back to the base and rubs gently.

“But it didn’t happen, Honey Tongue… It didn’t because you’re the most… You’re a big badass Qunari and you decided what you wanted, and you took it. Even though you were little when you did, yeah? You took it. And look where you are. All that hero stuff, all that Inquisitor stuff. More importantly, all that wifey stuff, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Kerah laughs a little, but all the tension is still in her, wound up tight like a bowstring. “Yeah, I did… Still, I can’t… I don’t know how to stop it scaring me.”

It sounds like her throat’s all tight, and Sera knows that feeling. She thinks for a moment, brow furrowed while she looks at Kerah and moves her hands down to her neck, fingers rubbing at the back.

“Then we’ll talk about it, okay? I… You don’t scare me. I’m not scared of you being like that, cause I know you. So it won’t scare me if you talk about it. It’s sweet as shit that you were thinking about me, but you can relax. I’ll be okay, Honey Tongue. I want to help you. So talk and we’ll work it out and I’ll help you not to be so scared.”

Kerah’s been relaxing as she speaks, a smile that’s small but genuine settling on her features. She wraps her arm around Sera’s waist, her hand over her hip and gripping firmly, big and sturdy and reassuring.

“How did I ever mange to deserve you?” She murmurs, kissing Sera’s forehead.

“You agreed to let my Jennies fuck ‘round with the nobles and let me stick ‘round you. Plus you’re all tall and, you know.” She kisses Kerah lightly on the lips. “Woof.”

Kerah laughs a little, kissing Sera again. It’s Sera that pulls away after letting that kiss linger for several long moments.

“I… I’m a lot more in love with you than I could ever be scares of magic. Talk to me when you need to, Honey Tongue.”

“I promise.” Kerah flops back onto the bed, taking Sera with her. “Anything you ask, Mrs. Sera Adaar.”

Sera grins and closes her eyes, ear right over Kerah’s heart. She likes the feel of it, the sound of it thumping away. Maybe the demon kid thing isn’t all that eugh. It might actually be a little good, when even when it’s a creepy pain in the arse.


End file.
